Yvon Chouinard founder of the outdoor apparel maker Patagonia is donating the entire company and all proceeds to Climate change.
Rather than selling the company or taking it public, Mr. Chouinard, his wife and two adult children have transferred their ownership of Patagonia, valued at about $3 billion, to a specially designed set of trusts and nonprofit organizations
Billionaire No More: Patagonia Founder Gives Away the Company https://nyti.ms/3xoymDi
“Billionaire No More: Patagonia Founder Gives Away the Company”
There are 8 planetary forces that have been affecting climate change for 4.45 billion years, 99.7% of that time there were no humans.
The mass media exerts almost hypnotic power over the masses.
Having a billion dollars does not and will not change these.
I buy Patagonia when I can. It is expensive, but this is a company that truly sticks up for their values. Yvon Chouinard has said that if you buy a Patagonia fleece, he wants it to last a lifetime. No fashion trends, no falling apart, no replacement every couple years. Just good outdoor wear that lasts forever. I believe they also have a policy that they will repair or replace Patagonia gear for the lifetime of the item (not necessarily for free, but with the intent that the items last as long as possible).
I respect a founder willing to put their money where their values are.
I still wear a Patagonia fleece pullover that is over 40 years old. It is not one that I wear out in public but is holding well for yard work and work out in the woods.
Stayed up little later last night reading this in the NYT. I am impressed.
I left off a comment with the Times basically saying WEB has been weak in this area. He has not been political enough in case he can not sell a can of Coke…Gates is mistiming his efforts giving away only a trickle when the money is needed now. Gates in my estimate is really screwing up. There will be billionaires later who can do good work. We need the work now.
There are 8 planetary forces that have been affecting climate change for 4.45 billion years, 99.7% of that time there were no humans.
The same scientists who discovered these natural forces have also ruled out those natural forces as a cause of climate change over the past 50 years.
I still wear a Patagonia fleece pullover that is over 40 years old. It is not one that I wear out in public but is holding well for yard work and work out in the woods.
I have some old Patagonia clothes too. But also some Great Pacific Ironworks climbing equipment which was the original company name that I got free (long story) at the factory one summer.
Mike
I was climbing at Stony Point (great small local bouldering and tech climbing area in the north San Fernando Valley half way from Los Angeles to the Great Pacific Ironworks in Ventura mentioned in previous post) when Chouinard showed up and roped a few of us teenagers into helping him test a new version of his “Realized Ultimate Reality Piton” or RURP. It was the last piton invented in his brilliant reinvention of technical rockclimbing.
He gave me the one I tested. It is now pretty thoroughly banged up looking because my brother fell on it while climbing on a Lost Arrow variation in Yosemite. It held and saved his life. He wears it on a necklace around his neck when he wants to keep his mortality present to mind.
http://www.alpinist.com/doc/ALP52/tool-users-realized-ultima…
david fb
I was climbing at Stony Point
Wow!
I grew up just a couple of miles from Stoney Point!
I climbed there 100+ times.
I also did the Lost Arrow a few years later…we took too long and had to cancel doing the tyrolean traverse.
Mike
Mike:
Great to see another Stony Point alumnus here! What a wonderful place it was for me in the late 60’s. The people were almost always considerate and mutually helpful, and for an urban backyard kept it amazingly clean and delightful.
david fb
What a wonderful place it was for me in the late 60’s.
Maybe I just missed you…I took my first climbing class there in Feb 1970!
Mike
took my first climbing class there in Feb 1970
Yes, we just missed. I left for college in Boston in 1969. My new climbing gym was this place:
https://www.summitpost.org/quincy-quarries/488695
an abandoned granite quarry near the town of Quincy, and the site of arguable the first railroad in the USA, the “Granite Railroad” that took stone out of the quarry down to stone cutters and cartage.
david fb